Teens plead guilty in Elgin murder; sentenced to 20 years

ROLLING MEADOWS — “The tragedy of the whole thing is that this was children killing children,” Cook County prosecutor Mike Gerber said Tuesday afternoon after two Elgin youths scheduled to go on trial on a first-degree murder charge Tuesday instead agreed to a last-minute plea bargain.

Ricky J. Moreno, now 17, and Mario A. Williams, now 18, both pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and were sentenced to 20 years in prison on the day their joint trial was to begin in Cook County Circuit Court. They admitted they had killed Nestor Alvarado, who was then 16, on June 7, 2012, when they themselves were just 15 years old.

Moreno and Williams are eligible to get one day off their sentence for each day they serve on good behavior, and they also get credit for more than two years they have spent in jail since they were arrested. So they could be released in less than eight years.

The 20-year sentence is the longest allowed for second-degree murder but is less than the minimums for first-degree murder committed with a gun.

If they had been convicted on the original first-degree murder charge, they would have faced at least 45 years in prison for Williams, who fired the fatal shot, and at least 35 years for Moreno, who handed Williams the gun that was used. And those sentences could not have been shortened by good behavior.

Prosecutors have said that the shooting resulted from tension between two Elgin street gangs. Prosecutors told Judge Thomas Fecarotta that Williams and Moreno walked to the city skate park along Willard Avenue on the night of the shooting and argued with three other youths — Alvarado, David Marroquin and Francisco Chairez.

Gerber said Moreno and Williams then began walking northward along Willard and the other three boys started walking after them, shouting gang slogans and threats, and phoning for several friends to come to the scene and help them. Chairez had a pitbull dog on a leash. As they reached the 7-Eleven convenience store and gas station at Willard and East Chicago Street, a car containing the Alvarado group’s reinforcements drove up.

About that time, the prosecutor said, Williams pointed a handgun at the boys behind him and fired two shots. One bullet hit the dog, inflicting a nonfatal wound. The other shot hit Alvarado in the chest, causing an injury to one of his lungs that caused him to die soon after.

Gerber said a woman shopping for a car at a nearby auto dealership saw Williams turn and fire the two shots.

Gerber said a surveillance video at the gas station did not capture the shooting. But he said the video shows Williams with a gunlike bulge in his waistband. It also shows the wounded Alvarado staggering to the car containing his friends and getting in, and the car driving away. Police later stopped the car at Dundee Avenue and Symphony Way — about a mile from the scene. They sent Alvarado to Provena Saint Joseph Hospital, where he was declared dead.

Not self-defense

Fecarotta told Moreno and Williams that the crime is now being considered a second-degree murder based on the legal theory that those boys feared for their safety yet actually were not in enough jeopardy to be justified in shooting Alvarado and the dog.

Gerber said the two feared that the three to seven rival gang members would beat them with fists and perhaps sic the pitbull on them, but none of the rival youths was carrying a gun.

“Justice has been served,” said Assistant Public Defender Deana Binstock, who represented Williams.

Binstock said that while he was confined in the Cook County Youth Home for two years, Williams earned a high school diploma. “That’s a source of great pride to him,” she said. “I’m hoping he’ll be able to start earning college credits once he gets into the Department of Corrections.”

Gerber said Williams had no previous criminal record on either the adult or juvenile level. He said Moreno was facing juvenile-court charges of burglary and aggravated battery when the murder occurred.

After the plea bargain, Moreno’s attorney, Nils VonKeudell, disappeared in the direction of the juvenile court. When he returned about an hour later, he said any juvenile charges against his client had been settled as part of the adult-court plea bargain.

Binstock and VonKeudell said the prosecution’s offer of a plea bargain began to be discussed just last week and the deal wasn’t finalized until the night before the trial was to begin.

“It was a tough decision based on these facts,” VonKeudell said. “The state recognized that there was a problem proving first-degree murder because the facts about provocation (by the victim and his friends) were well known. But if we had lost, Ricky was looking at 35 years in prison.”

Williams’ mother, who declined to give her name, said “it’s a damn shame” that her son had to pled guilty, but added, “I’m very deeply sorry about Nestor [Alvarado].”